They were repeatedly ruled out of order by Michael Kitt, the leas ceann comhairle, but not before Ms Daly and Ms Collins named the judge.

“Judge Devins has been named in the newspapers, as have sports figures and other officials, including gardaí. We are talking about the loss of millions to the State,” said Ms Daly.

“The Government has had in its possession kn-owledge of the systematic writing-off of motoring offences for almost a year and it has done nothing.”

Ms Collins said: “There are fixed-term notices and judges are giving down charges to people with penalty points and Mary Devins is named in this. It is outrageous.”

However, Mr Kitt reminded the TDs that persons not in a position to defend themselves were generally not named in the Dáil.

“The general practice is that such persons should not be named or referred to in such a way as to make them identifiable, particularly where to do so would be an unreasonable invasion of privacy or where the reference could be in the nature of being a defamatory utterance.”